If you own a business and are looking for ways to market your services and win more clients, it won’t be long before someone advises you to create content.

This is usually good advice because the only people that don’t need content to market their services are:

people who make a career out of exclusively networking to get clients

people who did network for so long they have a solid referral base that keeps them busy, or

people who are great at cold calling and sales.

Everyone else needs content to succeed.

What is content and why should I make it?

Content is anything and everything your company puts out there that tells the world about your business, usually when you’re not there. Together, all the pieces make up your marketing. Articles, Facebook posts, podcast interviews and tweets: all content. Giving a live speech is great marketing, and when the recording of it is put online afterwards, that’s also great content. Even if you pay for advertising as part of your marketing strategy, those ads are still considered content.

Without content, how will people know you exist? They won’t. How would they?

I’m being explicit about this because content is just advertising in a less offensive packaging. “Content” seemed to become all the rage once “selling” started feeling a little too slimy. Instead, content is a less aggressive, more attractive way to engage with a company. Companies engage with their customers without heading straight for the sale and instead slowly bring customers into their world through content.

Since it’s a great way to advertise, everybody’s doing it, which is why there is so much out there. If you want business, you need to market, and if you want to market, you need content.

But it needs to be good or else you’ll be ignored and then it won’t serve its purpose!

What can I possibly say that’s new and interesting?

Nothing, and plenty.

Here’s the thing: unless you’re literally inventing a new way to split the atom, you’re not going to say anything that hasn’t already been said.

That’s why it’s not just about what you say, but how you say it that makes all the difference. Other people have said it, you need to say it in your own captivating, riveting, entertaining way. Your spin on a subject is how you turn information into infotainment. Making ideas both informative and entertaining enough to want to read/watch/listen to more is how you cut through the clutter of crap content and create something new that’s worth reading.

And there’s a reason you can share existing information in a new way and get people excited to read: humans can only absorb so much information at once. In any given day, and even any given hour, we are bombarded with millions of bits of information from our environment - most of which we necessarily tune out.

So what gets through? Very little. Only the most important, applicable, relevant, and noticeable bits of information make a lasting impression. A hundred people will read this article, for example, and walk away with a hundred different, nuanced ideas. The nuances come both from what they focus on while reading, and how they absorb that info as it relates to their own lives and experiences.

This is why it is so useful to put your perspective in your content.

Most of the self-help books that talk about transforming your life aren’t communicating something new. They are telling it through the lens of their understanding and their perspective, and when the right person reads it, they are going to relate to that person’s explanation more than someone else’s. Most of the ideas in modern-day personal development books are taken from philosophers and religions that are thousands of years old; it’s how you tell it that makes it click for a reader in a way it may not have in the “original” texts.

A good example of this is a book I reference often: Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. At its most basic level, it’s a book about the power of investing in income-producing assets. At least, that’s what I took away from it! Someone else might say it’s a book about investing in real estate, which it also is. Neither concept is novel at all; they’re both pretty basic, and there were certainly plenty of people before him that wrote about the value of investing in real estate. But the engaging and entertaining way he used his story to explain the concepts brought him huge success. His self-published book ended up selling millions of copies and became the basis for an entire business empire. I don’t even mess with real estate, and I still recommend this book to everyone because of the way he frames and explains asset building.

Stories are more memorable than lectures

The key is the way he said it - he didn’t just explain the value of income-producing assets (boring!). He told story after story of how, as a kid, he came to understand the concept from a young age working for his friend’s dad, or selling comics. Even if you’re not interested in either topic - assets or real estate - it’s worth a read just to see how readable he makes these seemingly boring topics! And for me, the book helped the idea “click” in my mind that immediately spawned the brainstorming session that became the Brandup Bootcamp.

The conclusion we can draw from this is that it’s no longer about sharing new information, but about sharing it in a new way that will pull the reader in and inspires them to actually absorb it and benefit from it in some way. To do this, you have to view all the information you put out as infotainment: information that is both helpful and entertaining. Without the entertaining piece, we’re just going to click “next” to see who else is out there explaining this, hopefully in a more captivating way.

I share this because it is a revelation I constantly have myself. It’s harder to entertain than it is to lecture. Anyone can just drone on explaining something they know, but it is the rare teacher that can explain it in a way that has the students engaged and excited to listen.

Just think back to high school. Were there any teachers or classes you remember vividly that you truly loved? What about boring classes you’d rather forget? I know I’ll never forget my AP Art History class senior year with Dr. Eisenstadt, who told fascinating stories about every important piece of work she shared. Sitting in the dark, looking at projected slides on the screen, and listening for an hour and a half about Renaissance paintings sounds like a recipe for a nap, but we were all hanging on her every word. It was the way she shared the information that made us perk up our ears, and even made it easy to study for the tests because we had internalized the information instead of just memorizing it.

History, like any subject, can be boring AF or riveting, and unless you have a photographic memory, you’re only going to remember the details if it was entertaining. The best way to entertain and inform is by using stories to explain concepts and ideas.

What will you remember from this article?

In the end, every person reading this is going to leave with a different take. One person might read this with a totally renewed motivation to write for their business, while another might leave thinking, “This is more of all that crap that is already out there too much.” Another might leave and immediately Google my name to see what else I have to say. Yet another might only remember the fact that they are a career networker and that they don’t need to write, and yet another might be unhappily reminded that they’re a career networker and should start writing so they can stop networking.

I bet you a majority will leave remembering that I mentioned Rich Dad, Poor Dad as a good example of how to make something dull interesting or remember the story of my high school Art History teacher (or whatever teacher it made them think of). This is because we remember the things that are most relevant to us, and that’s why there is always more opportunity to continue to share the information again through your own perspectives and stories to reach people in a new way.

I am a partner and brand strategist at Worstofall Design where we build brands that turn expertise into profit. Unlike most branding firms, we build entire brands in days instead of months, and only work for 1-3 person service businesses. Our unique process and niche positi...